


A Better Man Than That

by jdjunkie



Category: Stargate SG-1/White Collar
Genre: Background Jack O'Neill/Daniel Jackson, Background Peter Burke/Elizabeth Burke/Neal Caffrey, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-28
Updated: 2012-01-28
Packaged: 2017-10-30 06:11:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/328650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdjunkie/pseuds/jdjunkie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He loved to be touched. It had been so long.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Better Man Than That

**Author's Note:**

> Set four months after Jack leaves for Washington.

“You were only supposed to deliver a message,” Jack said. He’d been casting around for something, anything, to say since he’d come embarrassingly loud and long from a simple blowjob.

“You sound like Michael Caine in The Italian Job. ‘You were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off.’”  The man’s English accent was deliberately terrible. The blowjob, on the other hand, had been fantastic.

“Great movie,” Jack said, pulling the hotel bed sheet up to waist level, a sudden attack of not quite shyness at his nakedness taking him by surprise. Peter Burke had licked, stroked and sucked him to a fast orgasm while finger-fucking him.  Now was not the time to go all coy.

“One of Elizabeth’s favorites,” Burke said, smiling as his wife’s name fell from his lips.

Jack’s gut clenched a little. No such thing as a free blowjob. “You’re okay about this?” Jacked waved a hand back and forth between them. How could the man be? Really. He loved his fucking wife. He’d mentioned her often enough since their non-accidental accidental meeting in a D.C. coffee shop called Tryst.  The irony of the name was not lost on him.

Burke turned on his side to face Jack, leaning on one elbow. He was in good shape; slim, attractive in a slightly off-beat way and comfortable in his own skin. Jack liked him. Enough to go back to his hotel room and be sucked dry frustratingly quickly.

Burke pinned Jack with a searching gaze. “That’s not what you’re asking.”

Jack pursed his lips. “You’re right. It’s not.”

Burke laughed. “She’d be okay with this. I’m okay with this because I know she’s being taken care of. In all the ways that matter ... yes, including that one, probably.”

The guy was constantly surprising, especially if Jack read the subtext right. “You know, I had you alphabet guys all wrong. Straight-laced. By the book. Boring as hell.”

“Well, I would not normally disabuse you of that notion. But there are always exceptions.”

“And you’re one.”

“I’m flattered you think so.”

“I’m guessing here.”

“It’s an educated guess.” Burke reached out and poked Jack lightly in the chest with two fingers.  “You’re a hell of a lot brighter than you let on.”

Jack doubled the pillow under his head, making himself more comfortable, since it looked as though they would be here for a while. “Now who’s guessing?” The two fingers rested in the hair on Jack’s chest. He loved to be touched. It had been so long. He was fighting hard not to make this ... encounter ... into something it wasn’t.

“Johnson was right. So far, she’s been right about everything.” There was a teasing glint in Burke’s eyes as he let his gaze slip to Jack’s sheet-covered groin.

Jack tried not to grimace. Teasing and banter were hard enough when you’d only known the guy for a few hours. Harder still when they had come to represent the comfort and familiarity of a relationship that once was but might never be again _._

_Daniel ... oh god, Daniel ..._

Jack became aware of that all-too perceptive gaze on him again. “You all right?”  Burke’s tone was low and genuinely concerned. It would be so easy to fall, and this was never going to be anything but  a one-night stand.

_Not really. I’m lonely. Alone. I screwed up with the man I loved, who went away, came back and now only remembers me as a CO and friend. Apart from that, everything’s peachy. Thanks for asking._

“Didn’t mean to ... look, I don’t know how it ended with Johnson. But I’m thinking it wasn’t badly. She cared enough to talk me into talking to you.”

“Yeah. About that. How do you know her exactly?” The gentle swirl of fingers on his skin was wonderful. He found the touch hypnotic and addictive. He was starving for contact and he was only realizing this now. “You’re FBI, she’s CIA.”

“You said it yourself O’Neill. We’re alphabet people. We know people who know people.”

“Very enigmatic I’m sure. Call me Jack. You’ve had your fingers up my ass.”

There was that smile again; slow, wry but so fucking real it made Jack’s heart ache.

“Okay ... Jack. I consulted on a case with her once in New York. A matter of national security about which I know you won’t ask and you know I won’t tell.”  He licked his lips, turned his hand and rubbed his knuckles down Jack’s stomach until his belly twitched and contracted with longing.

Jack swallowed. Christ but he wanted to get hard again.

“We hit it off,” Burke continued. “She was bright, funny, great company. She came to our house for dinner a few times. Elizabeth took her shopping. They had lunch. Became friends in the way women can in ten seconds flat sometimes.  So, when she heard, she asked me for a favor. And here I am.”

“Yes,” Jack said, flatly, eyes following the path of teasing fingers as they played with the edge of the sheet and brushed the skin where belly became groin. “Here you are.”

“She’s working in London now. Dating an attaché with the Foreign Office. The former I know officially, the second I know through Elizabeth, which is as good as official.”

“She could have called me herself. We parted on good terms.” He couldn’t stop watching the lazy progress of Burke’s fingers as they stroked back and forth across his stomach.

“She could have. But she knew I was due in Washington. Didn’t want to trust phones or email. She wrote a letter, actually. Old-fashioned and kind of cute and surprisingly safe in these days of modern technology.”

Made sense. She always had been careful.  It was one the things Jack had liked about her.

“And she’s sure about this?”

“As far as she can be. Someone, very probably IOA, is digging hard into your past and is doubtless keeping close tabs on you now.”

“And yet. Here you are.”

“Yes,” Burke said, hand trailing lower, resting lightly, so fucking teasingly, over O’Neill’s package. “Here I am.”

“Then you’re either stupid or desperate.”

The hand on Jack’s cock squeezed. “I’m neither. I’m catching up with the friend of my wife’s friend. The room is clean. I swept and swept again.  You’re not staying the night and I will never see you again.”

Jack swallowed. He wanted this man to fuck him. He was close to begging. He’d walk out of this room and go back to his empty Washington life that didn’t have Daniel in it and be twice as lonely as when he walked in here.

“Jack.” He said it softly. He didn’t sound like Daniel when he said it. Jack was grateful for that. “She thinks you’re being lined up for greater things somewhere down the line.”

This was bullshit. “I’ve only just gotten to the Pentagon.”

“You’re good.”

“I’m _competent.”_

“You care enough to do the best job you know how. Whatever the cost to you.”

“I just do my job.” Even if it fucking killed him.

 “You’re better a better man than that and you know it.”

And just like that, he was back in Baal’s cell; battling death on one hand and Daniel’s overwhelming belief in him on the other. He couldn’t be here. Couldn’t hear this from someone else; couldn’t fight this fight again. Couldn’t stand another man’s hands on him. Jack kicked the sheet away and sat on the edge of bed, turned away. “You don’t know that. You don’t know _me_.”

“But Kerry does, and I like I said, she’s been right about everything.”

Fuck it. Fuck her. Fuck everything.

“Then let them go fish. If they’re as stupid as I think they are, they’ll catch the biggest red herring of them all.” They’d sniffed around the myth that was O’Neill and Carter for as long as he could remember.  O’Neill and Jackson was so far under the radar it hadn’t even registered for O’Neill and Jackson much of the time. Good luck landing that. Jack pulled on his boxers and punched into his cargo pants.

“Jack.”

He wanted out of here. He pulled on his sweatshirt. If he called a cab from the hotel foyer he’d be at the house he could never call home in twenty minutes tops.

“Jack.”

“Thanks for the blowjob. Thank Johnson for her concern.”

His back to the bed, Jack didn’t know Burke was directly behind him until he felt warm breath on his neck. Crap. That would never have happened a couple of years ago.

“She cares. She’s just saying be careful. Be aware.” He placed a warm hand on Jack’s shoulder. Jack felt the weight of it through the cotton.

“That’s the irony,” Jack said, his voice sounding tired to his own ears. “I was too careful. Lost something ... some _one_. And now ... there’s nothing to be careful about.”

The hand on his shoulder squeezed. The other hand settled at his waist, not holding on, just holding.

“Look. You don’t have to go yet.  Stay awhile. We don’t have to fuck. We can call room service, watch a game. Talk about the weather.”

Jack breathed out, long and deep. He needed time to think about what Johnson’s intel meant. But the truth was he didn’t want to think at all. Just for once, just for a few moments, he wanted to feel something.

He turned, looked Burke in the eye and waited.

“Or we could fuck,” Burke said quietly.

Jack closed his eyes and waited to feel.

 

ends


End file.
